“I notice that while you were concentrating, you’re not terribly busy, Lieutenant… Miuki, was it?”
“Yes, sir, Miuki,” she replied. “I’m waiting on the rest of the signals from the fleet, sir.”
“Which are over at operations.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?” the admiral inquired, mildly.
“They… go through ops first, sir,” the officer said, swallowing.
“Van Kr…” Edmund said then shook his head. “No… Destrang.”
“Sir?”
“Go over to operations. On my authority, pore through those messages. Pull out any that only pertain to material needs and move them over here. Now.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign said languidly, then strolled back over to ops.
“You’ll have your messages shortly, Lieutenant,” the admiral said. “But all I want you to do is sort out who wants what and send it on. Let someone in the G-4 section make up the ship packets or whatever. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Lieutenant Miuki.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Herzer and the ensigns followed the admiral to the far side of the room where he stood looking at the map for a long time, then turned around shaking his head.
“No plan survives contact with the enemy, Herzer.”
“No sir,” Herzer said, smiling faintly. “That’s why they call them the enemy, sir.”
Megan smiled as Paul rolled off of her and she rearranged her clothing as she cleaned up.
When she had first arrived in the harem the “standard” clothing was light silk robes that were presupplied. Some of the girls made clothing of their own; Mirta Krupansky for example was an accomplished seamstress. The simple rule, strictly enforced by Christel, was that the clothing had to be “nice to look at” by which she meant “skimpy.”
Megan had used a crisis with Paul, a time when he nearly killed himself from neglect, to effect several changes. One of them was to get Mirta to do more classes on sewing. The woman was clearly older than she looked or acted and had spent her time studiously avoiding any attention in the harem. Megan more or less forced her to take a more proactive role and over time all of the girls, even Megan, became competent at making “appropriate” outfits.
But another change that Megan effected was the robes. They had struck her from the beginning as being silly. And not having panties or bras was just idiocy. So, soon after the “crisis,” she had convinced Christel to “outsource” for standard clothing that, while alluring, was a bit more practical. Among other things, working out in the robes was a pain and doing so stark naked was a specific pain; Paul was eclectic in his taste in women, with the exception of breasts.
The “standard” clothing in the harem, now, was a short midriff top, front-opening bra, either short skirt or very short shorts and panties. They arrived in various sizes and then the girls “fitted” them a bit more closely. Of course, when Paul came to visit those came off and a variety of “special” outfits went on.
Megan’s “special” outfits tended to look not much different from the day-to-day ones, just in more vivid colors and richer fabrics. She was currently wearing a short, split, hip-hugging skirt and a very brief halter top, both in a rich, rippling red material.
She picked up her ripped panties and shook her head.
“You’ve been away too long again, Paul,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose I have,” the council member replied. He looked much better than during the crisis. The girls had managed to convince him that starving himself wasn’t good for him or them. And he had tended to spend more time in the harem afterwards; most of his work was done via sentient avatars which had to be “gathered” and resent on an almost daily basis. They were, for all practical purposes, “him” but as time went by their experiences tended to make the personalities fragment away from the base. Gathering them always was somewhat traumatic as he dealt with the various problems that arose in brutal bursts.
But that meant that he could do it just about anywhere and for several months after the crisis he had tended to do the “reintegration” in the harem, usually while Megan or Christel watched over him.
The combination of the girls stuffing him and coming out of his reintegration trance with a pretty female snuggled up against him had done wonders for his psyche. Which was why Megan found it odd that he had been gone for nearly a month. Presumably, given his actions, celibate.
“I liked staying here,” Paul said as he slipped on his pants and shirt. “But I found that I was really starting to lose my focus. I needed to get out among the people and experience their lives again. It’s… getting better. But the life they live is still brutal and horrible.”
“You don’t get that from your avatars?” Megan asked.
“Not the same,” Paul admitted. “They don’t experience the life the way that I do. I feel I need that if I’m going to do the best job that I can for the people, given the current conditions.”
“You’re a very good man, Paul,” Megan said, slipping up to him and cradling him in her arms. “But that’s one of the reasons we like to have you here. Another, selfish, reason I like it is I haven’t had any news in a month. What’s going on?”
“Good news and bad,” Paul admitted. “The Tauranian forces of that bitch Ishtar defeated Lupe’s forces and are just about to close in on the Alam reactor site.”
“Well, big deal.” Megan shrugged, carefully ensuring that the shrug transmitted through the breasts she had pushed into his side. “There’s a force-field up around the reactor, right? They can’t capture it through that.”
“Force majeure,” Paul sighed. “If they take the territory, Mother will transfer the control of the shield to them. They ‘own’ it according to her protocols. It’s the same weakness we’re trying to exploit all over, so I can’t exactly complain.”
“That’s insane,” Megan said, honestly.
“Mother doesn’t take sides,” Paul pointed out. “She’ll maintain our personal protection fields, but she’s not going to defend the reactor for us. We’ve built up a fortress around it, but they’re sure to take that in time. Especially since it can’t be close, given the power they’re pouring on its shields. It’s really just a curtain wall. Lupe has pulled a good bit of the army they defeated inside the walls, but even if they don’t attack they can just starve them out. And then they’ll have the reactor and there goes an eighth of our power. I’ve instructed them to destroy the reactor rather than have it fall into Ishtar’s hands, but if we lose that much power, things are going to be tough.”
“So what’s the good news?” Megan asked, filing that point away.
“Chansa’s plan worked,” Paul said, brightening up. “He sent out his combat fleet and ravaged the UFS fleet good and hard. They lost a lot of their carriers and their wyverns aren’t getting fed so they’re on their last legs. But he couldn’t completely destroy them because of a storm. He also took out their main shipyard and their headquarters. The next plan is to spoof them into moving out of position and send out the invasion fleet. It looks like the invasion is on.”
“Good news,” Megan said, thinking about the plans she already knew. “If you can get to the Pizurg power plant in time, you might be able to make up the gain in power.”
“Or, even if they destroy it, we’ll at least not be so much in the hole,” Paul said, nodding. “If we can get an invasion force to take and hold some of the territory in Norau, we can set up portals and not, strictly, need the sea-lanes anymore. Once we own territory on the coast, territory we can demonstrate is resuppliable, Sheida can’t block our teleports. We can pour forces through the portals.”